Jean Peters

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If anyone can make a yellow rain slicker (with full hood) look good, it's Marilyn Monroe, though this waterlogged thriller comes up unfortunately short.

Set on the banks of Niagara Falls, honeymooners Polly and Ray (Jean Peters and Max Showalter) encounter the brazen Rose (Monroe) and her creepy husband George (the inimitable Joseph Cotten) in the bungalow next door. It soon becomes clear that their marriage is far from ideal, and within 20 minutes of its beginning, Rose has all but arranged for her husband's murder, in cahoots with her hunky boyfriend. Of course, George survives and gets his revenge, and then tries to make his escape with Polly in tow, who somehow seems to get in the middle of every turn of the plot.

It's probably blasphemy, but I'll say it anyway: Pickup on South Street is simply an unremarkable film noir.

Samuel Fuller, best known for his masterful psycho-ward thriller Shock Corridor, made Pickup because he (per his interview on the new Criterion DVD) wanted to get inside the mind of the pickpocket, show how he lives, and really show the audience what he's all about. That's an admirable goal, and the film's opening scenes -- wherein a seedy-looking Richard Widmark is spied plying his trade on a subway -- give us about all the insight anyone really needs into the pickpocket life.